When, therefore, we pass from the phenomenal manifestations of human power and goodness, we come into the presence of other phenomena which we know could not be and were not produced by such a limited and imperfect being as man, but which must yet have had an author, a maker, an originator, a creator. We thus contemplate and investigate facts which show that the phenomena were the products of a skill, wisdom, and power that transcend all measurement. Is it said that the phenomena of nature, stupendous and varied and minute and wonderful as they are, evince only that a certain degree of power and wisdom was exerted in their production, even if their production is attributed to a being competent to bring them about? And therefore that the idea of a being of unlimited faculties and perfect goodness is as far as ever from our reach by any true process of thought? This assumption begs something that should not be taken for granted. It assumes that the production of the phenomena of nature does not evince unlimited power and perfect goodness; did not call for the existence of boundless faculties and inexhaustible benevolence; involved only a degree of such qualities, although a vastly superior degree to that possessed by us. The correctness of this assumption depends upon the force of the evidence which nature affords of the character of the Deity. It is an assumption which has led to enormous errors--errors of conception and belief which impute to the Supreme Being only a superior degree of power and wisdom, greater than our own, but still limited and imperfect, liable to error, and acting in modes which distress us with contradictions and inconsistencies.